Episode 274 Transcript

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 274

Jennifer Gonzalez, Host

GONZALEZ: This is Jennifer Gonzalez and welcome to Episode 274 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to talk about why school in Denmark is better, and what practices of theirs we might be able to implement in the U.S.

It’s kind of ironic that the longest episode I’ve ever published doesn’t really contain anything specific that would help teachers do their work better, which is what I usually try to do here. But I think the conversation is interesting nonetheless, and I believe it contains some stuff that could make our schools better overall.

I’ve known today’s guest, Pernille Ripp, for over ten years now. Through her blog and her books, she writes about learning and literacy and how we show up every day in a way that makes school a humane and enriching place. She’s been a guest on the podcast before, on episode 84 in 2017, an interview we called How to Stop Killing the Love of Reading, and we’ve stayed in touch over the years since, which included her move from the U.S. to her native country of Denmark, where she has been living for the past few years.

Our more recent conversations have been about Pernille’s experiences teaching in Denmark compared to how it was to teach in the U.S., and it’s been fascinating, so I asked her if we could do a deeper dive here. Comparing education in the U.S. to schools in other countries is not a new thing, and when we do it, the U.S. almost always looks worse by comparison. Today’s episode will follow that same pattern, but I’ve asked Pernille to take it a step further: Yes, we will be talking about a handful of things that make teaching in Denmark better, but as we talk, we’re going to consider how we might bring some of these same features to U.S. schools. 

What I think you’re going to find is that most, if not all, of the possibilities are about doing less, not adding something more. They are simple subtractions from the long, long list of expectations we place on teachers and students. They wouldn’t necessarily require more money or new programs, just an adjustment of expectations to make them more realistic. It’s pretty amazing what a difference it can make when the to-do list is just shorter. My hope is that when you listen, you won’t be left with the wistful feeling of “must be nice… but we could never be like that,” and instead you start imagining how we might bring elements of the Danish way of doing things into our own schools. It’s always been my belief that any system created by people can also be changed by people, so I hope this episode inspires someone to make a few changes in their own school.

Before we get started, I’d like to thank Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. I’m always looking for data that reflects what teachers experience, week to week, in real schools today. So I want to tell you about Alpaca, a teacher retention and school leadership platform I’ve been a fan of for a few years now. You may remember them from episode 230, when their CEO Karen Borchert came on to talk about semantic pulse surveying. They’ve been building on that work, and just released the 2026 School Culture Report, the most comprehensive look at school culture I’ve seen in K-12. For the first time, they’ve combined 33,000 teacher check-ins, 155 leader surveys, and 38 in-depth interviews across 35 states to show what school culture looks like right now. The patterns around leadership, retention, and teacher experience are worth a read anytime you’re thinking about how to support your team. It’s a free download, and a great one to bring into planning sessions when you want real data on school culture to ground the conversation. Head to getalpaca.com/pedagogy to grab it.  And if you want to explore the platform behind the data, listeners get 15% off their first year of Alpaca. Worth a look if you want to bring more teacher voice into how you lead.

Support also comes from iCivics. Bringing the history of our founding ideas to life doesn’t have to be a challenge. With Investigation Declaration, a new educational game from iCivics, middle and high school students step into the role of Secret Agent 6. Their mission is to stop the global crime ring, Baddies Against Rights & Freedom—or BARF for short—from destroying vital historical files. As students travel through 100 years of history, they discover how Enlightenment concepts such as natural rights, state sovereignty, and the social contract became central themes of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. With a learn-as-you-play design that fosters student agency, this game brings foundational ideas to life and lets students build a deeper understanding on their own terms. Bring inquiry-based learning into your classroom by checking out Investigation Declaration at cultofpedagogy.com/icivics.

Now here’s my conversation with Pernille Ripp about teaching in Denmark.

GONZALEZ: You and I have been talking forever. You were on the podcast in 2017. We have known each other in this space of people who write on the internet about education, and speak to teachers and train teachers and stuff like that. And so for a long time, you were doing all this stuff in the U.S. 

RIPP: Yeah. Long time. 

GONZALEZ: And then, a couple years ago, you moved to Denmark. 

RIPP: I moved home. 

GONZALEZ: And you are Danish, exactly. 

RIPP: Right. 

GONZALEZ: We should also add that you are not an expat moving to Denmark. You’re there. And so, some of the conversations that we have had in the last year or two have been about how different it is to teach in Denmark. And so we thought it would make a good podcast episode because I hear our schools all the time being compared to other countries. But it feels a lot of times like those conversations end with, “It’s so much better in other places.” And then period. That’s the end of the sentence. 

RIPP: Right. Yeah. That’s the whole podcast. You should move to that country to get that. 

GONZALEZ: Right. And I don’t want to do that here. 

RIPP: No. 

GONZALEZ: I want to, and since you’ve taught in both places, I thought this would be such a great way for us to try to figure out, because yes, you have said, “It is so much better to teach in Denmark,” for a lot of reasons. So we’re going to go through those reasons, but what we’re going to try to do is talk about how could we bring some of those qualities, patterns, mindsets, practices into U.S. schools. Is there, is there a way?

RIPP: Right. Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: So. 

RIPP: Yes there is. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: Not to reveal the big answer. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: But there are so many things that can be done. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, good. And you have a, you’ve got a deep understanding of U.S. schools too, so this is coming from, how long did you teach in the United States?

RIPP: I knew you were going to ask me that, and I keep forgetting. I think it’s 16 years, 17 years? Sixteen or 17 years. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. A good chunk of time. 

RIPP: Good chunk of time. 

GONZALEZ: And what were the grades that you taught? Was it public school? 

RIPP: Yep. Public school. Totally normal, multi-cultural, all sorts of kiddos, all sorts of needs, all sorts of socioeconomic statuses. All sorts of political beliefs. All sorts of languages. And I taught, taught grades, well in resource I taught all the way down to first, but I taught elementary fourth and fifth then jumped up to seventh for a long time. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And was an English teacher. So a broad gamut of children and experiences. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: And getting to see the changes in the U.S. educational system firsthand. Obviously, like so many of us have in the last two decades, and getting to also change my roles constantly as far as what I was teaching and how I was teaching and sharing out loud, like you said, for all these years, since 2010 and going, you know, questioning the system that we’re within and reaching for the stars alongside my students. And so it’s been incredibly fascinating to come home to a country that I left when I was 18 not having been an adult at all, and then certainly not having been in the educational system except for a product of it. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And then to get the insider scoop, and really being shocked at a lot of things that I had taken for granted, kind of like as my teacher role and who I’m supposed to be as an educator. And that’s what you and I have been talking a lot about. Of just the humanity of teaching over here and the sustainability, while not perfect by any means.

GONZALEZ: Yeah, okay. 

RIPP: Because I think that’s also been something you and I have discussed a lot is just how pervasive some of the issues within education are whether you’re sitting in a, in a smaller country like Denmark or sitting in the U.S. or sitting elsewhere. But also finding hope that there’s ways that we can take things. And so I think I’ve just been questioning out loud for so long that it felt natural for you and I to start talking about what does this look like now? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Now that I get to sit on the other side of the ocean. 

GONZALEZ: Right, right. 

RIPP: And pretend that I know what I’m doing, really. 

GONZALEZ: What is your current teaching role there now? 

RIPP: Yeah. So I’m a third grade teacher now, and I’m about to be a first grade teacher again. And I think that’s one of the first changes, right, is that in Denmark, typically, not always, you stick with your students for more than one year. So what would we call looping in the U.S. and that’s just ingrained as an educational practice. And so I’ve been with these students since first grade. And I’m about to hand them over, and after third grade is kind of the natural cutoff, often. And I think about the peace it’s given me knowing these students and their families as well as I do. They are a part of my just internal structure of planning, and I think about the way that this year started in third grade, because I picked up another third grade class as well. So two third grade class — and just the juxtaposition between the two, because with the one that I had looped with, we were ready to go Day 1. I didn’t have to sit and wonder, “Who are these kids?” as much as like what are their levels? I mean, obviously they change but we just, we went right back into our community. Whereas with the new students, I spent so much time trying to uncover who they were and what they brought to the table obviously and for them to trust me. I spent so much extra energy on this other class that I didn’t have to spend on the class that I got to just pick up and go with. 

GONZALEZ: Right, yeah. 

RIPP: And that’s like a sustainability thing, right? Like, the fact that you get to know these kids in such a deep way, you also get to see the seeds that you plant back in first grade all of a sudden come to fruition. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so I think about the worry. That’s actually made me worried less for these kids, because they were kids that we could not, you know, get to crack the reading code and they were just, we were really worried, and now in third grade, they’re so much further along. And I’ve gotten to see that. And so I think about the guilt that I have carried throughout the years in the U.S. because it was always catch and release. It was always for one year and then you pass them on, and you get to the end of the year, and you’re like, I didn’t do enough. I didn’t do all the things I was supposed to do. These kids have not grown enough, progressed enough, changed enough under my care, and how have I failed? I don’t feel that in the same way, because I’ve seen the things that we’ve worked on and how long some of them took to come into fruition. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: So I know that there are still kids that are just in the seed phase that are going to blossom later on. 

GONZALEZ: Oh. That sounds really satisfying. 

RIPP: It’s relief. Yeah. It’s relief. And that gives me energy to focus on other things. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. Okay. So what we, what we did, you sort of just gave me a Google Doc of all different things that are different. And so what we’re, I kind of put them into two buckets, basically. So the first batch of things are going to have to do with what it is like to be a teacher. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And then the second batch we’ll talk about is the differences for being students there. The policies and practices that make things better for students there. So, and I’m going to just read to you the headings and then let you talk. So the first thing that you mentioned as being better for teachers in Denmark is that the system assumes that you are competent as a teacher. Tell me about that. 

RIPP: Absolutely. And I love that heading because of course we stop and we ponder and we go, “Really, in America I’m not assumed competent?” And I think it’s because we have to look through the lens of restrictions that are placed upon teachers in North America. At my school, and again, I’m speaking from my experience in Denmark. I am in a school that very much values design in curriculum and changes happening very quickly because we don’t have the same district structures as you would in America. We’re under a municipality instead. We’re not sitting in committees when we want to make changes. We’re instead having conversations with our colleagues and talking about why do we think things like this would be better for kids? We’re bringing forward ideas, which means that things get implemented a lot quicker. And so it assumes that I know what I’m talking about and that the experience that I have with my students is one that is valid and also valuable. It also allows me to assess my students in ways that make sense. Of course we have standardized testing in Denmark. Unfortunately, but really that’s not a main focus for us in any kind of way. We are instead looking at the whole kid and going, as far as the piece of the puzzle that we’re in, what can we do to make sure that they have these skills? But I also think that the freedom that I get to adjust my pacing. I don’t feel the same pressure as I do in the United States teaching. In the U.S., you know, you start on the first day of school and by the second day of school, you already feel behind.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And you’re looking at the end of the year going, “How am I going to get there?” And in Denmark, it’s a bit more of a meandering pace. Not to say that it’s slow, because it’s certainly not. We’re still expected to cover ground, and we have curriculum we’re expected to cover. But we have less curriculum to cover. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: If that makes sense. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: So the chunk is there, but the chunk is smaller. And it’s because it’s set to a child pace rather than at an adult pace. And so when we even look at the structure of our schools, which I know we’ll talk more about too, in first, second and third grade, I teach, the students come into our classroom at 7:50. Teaching starts at 8. And they are done at 1:15. And that’s it. There’s no long school day. And that’s, you know, different based on schools that my own kids, they’re done at 1:45. They’re in seventh grade. But it’s very important in Denmark that the school day is manageable for all parties and that we get the very best hours together so that we then can go out and have lives. And so our curriculum is also fit into that. And in fact, the Danish government, because we’re a small country, the Danish government just came out and said there’s way too many goals that we’ve piled onto teachers. We need teachers to take them down. And now instead of having, I don’t know, it was like in the hundreds, we’re going to have like 10. 

GONZALEZ: Wow. 

RIPP: And so, I just think about that. And because they’re kind of these broad goals, we can go in a lot of different directions with it. And so it puts the professional development back on me, because I get to make judgment calls. I get to look at my students and go, what makes sense for this particular group of kids within this broad framework that I’m in, and then what are the resources that I need to use for that? And bottom line, what it comes down to is also that for me to be the best teacher that I can be, I have to have a life outside of school. And so because I’m not furiously trying to use every single minute to make sure I’m cramming as much stuff as I can into kids’ faces —

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: — that there’s kind of this idea instead of, “It’s going to be okay. Don’t forget about the human beings in front of you and also yourself.” I get to take a deep breath. I get to slow down. I get to have better wait time. I get to not freak out when my curriculum pacing is off the charts. Like right now I’m two weeks behind in the unit that I planned for three weeks. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, okay. 

RIPP: But it’s on purpose. 

GONZALEZ: It’s because something happened in class that made you slow down? 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Yes? Yeah. 

RIPP: And we’ve, and they’ve been more invested in some of the things that I created, and so we’ve gone with it, and it means that the whole experience has been a lot more humane. None of us are feeling this crazy pressure to go go go go go and get it done. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Which means that we’re leaving at the end of the day going, “That was fun.” 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: As fun as kids will say school is. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Right? And I leave that way too. I’m not rushing through my day, because I know that I can just pause it and move it to the next day.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay. I want to, I would like to make this more concrete. Because this sounds fantastic. Can you, and I didn’t ask you ahead of time to do this, so hopefully you can just do it off the top of your head. But can you sort of do almost like a side-by-side comparison of when you say, we have this sort of broad goal and within this broad goal we get to make all these decisions about how to meet that. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Versus what we do in the U.S. What would be an example of a goal that you get to have all this freedom inside?

RIPP: So one of the goals that I have, and so we have age-based goals in Denmark. And so after, “at the end of second grade, kids should be able to” kind of goals. 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm, yeah. 

RIPP: But they’re broad goals. And so one goal might be to discuss what they’ve been reading, right? 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. 

RIPP: And so when you think about how broad that language is, that can mean a lot of different things. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And there’s a few examples of what it could mean so that people don’t feel like they are standing and completely blind, you know, especially if they’re new educators. But it doesn’t say, “they need to be able to analyze this and do this and do this.” I don’t have a curriculum pacing guide where I have to be on the same page as my colleague yesterday. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Or next to me. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Because we don’t, we don’t necessarily teach the same way. As long as I can go back and say, “This is how I’m working on this broad goal for the end of second grade,” and right now my goals are for the end of fourth grade, so it jumps every two years, then I’m working under the curriculum guidance. And so what it allows me to do is that because it’s a broad goal like that, for example, students should be able to talk about what they’re reading, then I can start to play around with, “What does that look like through my teaching philosophy and my teaching pedagogy?” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that means that also that my colleague who does it differently than me can also find value in her work without feeling like she has to pack away who she is and the methods that she’s bringing to the table. And so it allows me to express myself much more clearly while also having, again, to force myself to go, okay, well what does this actually look like, because nobody’s handing me, you know, here are the three steps of what you should be able to check off. So, and that can also be overwhelming. It kind of depends on where you’re at and who you are, right? And so when I first came to Denmark, I was kind of like, I wish there was a curriculum. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because I don’t know what I’m doing. And can someone just hand me the book, so I know that I’m doing things right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And instead, you know, I turned to colleagues, and I said, what are you doing? Share all your stuff like we normally do. And now I find so much freedom in it, because it just means that I’m constantly able to adjust to the students. Because I’m not basing my curriculum off of fictitious students who can’t live up to the standards that are set in some crazy research project. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that’s always what I felt like within the U.S. like, a lot of the goals that we were given, even if they were state-based standards, my students couldn’t live up to them. It was like they had already lost before we even got started. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so I felt this insane pressure to get them caught up to some fictitious goal post, and it meant that I always felt behind, which meant my teaching wasn’t very good because I couldn’t really stop and say, well I know you guys don’t get it, but you know, we’re going to take some more time. It was instead, well, I know you don’t get it, but don’t worry. We’ll try to get back to it later in the year. 

GONZALEZ: As you’re talking, I’m thinking like a standards-based person or an American or whatever, and what you’re describing sounds nice. The skeptical part of me is thinking, okay, what if one teacher thinks to be able to talk about what you’re reading means these are the names of the characters. This was what happened. Very flat, very fact-based. 

RIPP: Right. 

GONZALEZ: And another teacher thinks, I’m going to give my opinions on it. I’m going to talk about what part I liked. I’m going to talk about what part was confusing. This is a more in-depth conversation over here. 

RIPP: Right, to further develop thinking, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And this would be an argument for standardizing because I would think most people would argue that developmentally, kids should be maybe being pushed more toward a little bit of a deeper conversation than just reporting the names of the characters. But if it’s up to the teacher all the time, then, then somebody could be like, oh yeah, they talked about their reading. 

RIPP: Right. 

GONZALEZ: They told me the title. 

RIPP: Right, and what they read. 

GONZALEZ: So where is the compass in Denmark to say, “No, it should be more like that.” And is there one? 

RIPP: I think, yeah. There definitely is. I think if you then continue to look at the goals because they’re set up under subgroups you can see the further development. What does that look like at the end of fourth grade? What does that look like at the end of sixth grade? And then you start to see the more honing in. I think also through the examples that they give, you can kind of see what they’re aiming for. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And then you end up, typically, so we’re in an in-school team that’s called, which is the, the young kids, so zero through third. We end up talking about, what does this look like? And I think it also forces the school to then give us time to have these professional conversations. Because it’s not just “adapt this curriculum,” you know, “we’re going to give you PD training in how to read the workbook and how to set up your lessons.” But instead it’s, “We have to give you work time to actually figure out what this means so that we are all kind of doing the same broad things.” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And what should a second grader be able to do versus a third grader versus a fourth grader, if they’re on pace? It forces the school to reallocate professional development time. And I think that that’s delicious too. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because it puts us back to the teachers. I mean how often have we sat maybe in really great professional development and gone, I wish we just had time to speak to each other? 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: And I wish we could share resources, and I wish we could share ideas because I know my colleague is doing something amazing. I think having it a little bit looser and then being confined by that looseness means that you have to give time to your staff to develop curriculum in a different way. 

GONZALEZ: Mhmm. 

RIPP: And I think also, and you and I have talked about this too, I am not the only teacher for my students. I am part of a teaching team of three teachers that teach my students, and we have different subject areas. And so I’m responsible for Danish PE, music, and art. Whereas somebody else is responsible for math and for science and for history and, actually, four people now that I think about it. This also means that I’m getting hopefully deliciously good at what I’m teaching. But also needing to recognize that I’m only one piece of the puzzle. And that their entire development is not hinging on my Danish periods. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: That their development is, is carried by four adults that are all part of the classroom. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And all part of the schedule. And they also need to be in on the curriculum conversations. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Because they’re also supporting skills within, within their classes. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so I think when I’m assumed to be a competent adult, I’m also assumed to only be one piece of the puzzle. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, yes. 

RIPP: And I think that that also gives me a lot more sustainability within my teaching practices, and a lot more freedom, because all of their development is not just on one person. And so it, it — you know how we often feel like we failed because we carry everything particularly in elementary where we’re the math teacher and the English teacher and the science teacher and we’re everything besides specials? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so the kid hasn’t progressed, well, it was our teaching that stopped them doing so. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I think that gets kind of automatically removed in Denmark because 1) teaching is only one part of the whole learning puzzle, and also, you’re not the only teacher, in most cases, that the student has. 

GONZALEZ: Right, okay. 

RIPP: Obviously, there are smaller schools. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so what this does is that you’re invested in curriculum conversations and pacing conversations and totally much, I don’t know, different ways and more natural ways because you’re constantly putting child development in front of you. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: Because you’re sitting down and you’re talking to your math teacher about how the kid is doing in math, and what’s their, what’s their behavior like, and their development like, and then you’re, then you’re connecting it back to your subject areas. And you’re doing that casually, you know. We have prep time together. We sit in the same office. We’re not tied to our classrooms like they are in the United States. Like, I don’t have my classroom. I have two third-grade classrooms that I go and visit, which certainly have a lot of my stuff in it. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: But then I have a work room that I go back to at the end of the day where my colleagues also sit. 

GONZALEZ: Aha. 

RIPP: And so we sit and we have these casual conversations about kids, and hey, did you notice, and did you do that? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But again, that’s also baked into our system because I’m done at 1:15. 

GONZALEZ: And you have that time, and you have that —

RIPP: I have that time. 

GONZALEZ: Your nervous system is regulated. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And you’re able to even engage in that. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, so this sounds lovely, and I’m thinking, I’m thinking about, knowing what, the way that we have this piece set up in America, and I got to stop using the word “America” because that’s a large swath of land.

RIPP: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: But how we have in the U.S. I think a lot of our systems have been set up with a subpar teacher in mind. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: With the idea of what about the teacher that’s going to either be a slacker or just isn’t that good at their job. We have to put some security in place to catch when that teacher is not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. 

RIPP: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: So that we can either, you know, worst case scenario, remove that teacher or retrain them or fix what’s going on and tell them you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that. Because what you’re describing is a group of highly competent, caring people who also care about kids and don’t hate kids. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And are, you know? 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And are there to talk about their well-being and also have, sounds like, very good training. So your range of opinions probably isn’t as broad as it might be in, I’m thinking about some people that I have taught with who did not have any interest in pedagogy and also didn’t like kids. And I don’t know why they were there. 

RIPP: I’ve taught with them too. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. But those conversations never went well. They, in fact, often didn’t even want to engage in those kind of conversations. 

RIPP: Right. And those teachers also exist in Denmark. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: One hundred percent. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: Where you’re like, why are you here? I don’t think you like children. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Right. 

RIPP: I don’t, like you are handing them things that you should not be handing them. Like, you’re clearly not invested. 

GONZALEZ: Are there disagreements between these people? 

RIPP: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: But I think 1, and this is going to sound weird, but because we tend to be, I don’t want to say less stressed, because there’s a lot of stress in teaching in Denmark too. That’s pervasive everywhere. But like we are less stressed. I feel like our nervous system is a little bit more reliable when it comes to having professional conversations. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: I felt like in America, I was already so full of everybody I’d had to navigate in a very long day with very little prep, potentially. Middle school had more prep, obviously. But there was always things I had to do. That by the time it got to the staff meeting or the conversations, I was already so full that my patience was really low. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But I also think that in Denmark, the trust is flipped. We assume competency and so we assume that you’re going to care about your job. We are going to set up systems so that you can fly, and then we certainly also have security systems for those who can’t succeed within this. 

GONZALEZ: And that is the opposite of here. 

RIPP: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: Yeah. So it’s the opposite, right. In the U.S., I often felt like those who soared, there had to be specific systems for them, like the outlier systems for them or those who wanted freedom. I can’t remember how many times I had to go and ask, “Can I pilot this?” “Can I try this?” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because it was outside of the norm. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Whereas in Denmark, you just, you do it, I mean unless it’s totally bonkerpants, right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But you just go and do it, and then instead, they’re looking at the ones that are not doing it, and what’s going on with them. And it’s always an assumption of “You would be doing better if our system was better.” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I think that’s a huge mind shift difference too in America. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: That if a teacher is not doing well, there’s kind of this wraparound system, and again, I’m speaking from my experiences, of people noticing. People questioning what’s going on. Are you okay? Are there things we need to remove from your very full plate? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: What can we do to support you? Is there mentoring you need? Do you need more conversations? Do you need leadership? What do you need so we can get you to soar and have that energy? Versus creating systems where we assume everybody’s going to do as little as they can and then not looking at the system and going, okay. I mean, in America, I felt like I was a cog in an educational business machine. I was always just told whatever new program we had purchased, and I better just make it work. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because if it didn’t work, it wasn’t the failure of the program, it was the failure of me. And if I was burning out, then it was also a failure on me because I wasn’t doing self care right now, you know. Like, I didn’t, I didn’t know how to —

GONZALEZ: “We gave you half an hour. Do self care now.” 

RIPP: Yeah. We gave you a choice to do yoga or go for a walk with a colleague. And in Denmark —

GONZALEZ: You should be all better. 

RIPP: And then again, I’m speaking from my school and from the people that I speak to and what I see at my kids’ school and whatnot. It’s much more of a systematic approach of holy buckets, what’s going on here? Why aren’t our teachers reaching for more things? And, and that’s a mind shift, mindset shift. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that can be implemented in the U.S. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: To be seen as competent adults doesn’t require money. It doesn’t. It requires a leader that looks out at their staff and goes, wow. look at all these people. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I wonder if we took our scripted curriculum or curriculum package or wherever, and people work under different restrictions. Sometimes they’re state-based, sometimes they’re district-based, sometimes they’re just principal-based. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Right. 

RIPP: If we took whatever things that we have to do that we’re mandated to do. And put it in front of teachers and said, okay, we can’t completely remove this, but we can change it, and we can adapt it. What would that look like? What are the ideas that you would bring to the table? And then you say, let’s try it. And let’s meet back here in whatever time. Not in a year, not in six months. Let’s meet in a month, six weeks, three months. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And go, what worked, what do we want to keep, what do you want to share more about so maybe your colleagues who did something else can hear about it? What do we definitely not want to get rid of? And what do we want to get rid of? Because I think there’s a lot of administrators in the U.S. that speak that language but then they’re so bound by other mandates that they get to not do that. We don’t question the programs enough in the U.S. 

GONZALEZ: No. 

RIPP: And I remember Kylene Beers always saying if you say that this is a program, then I want to speak to whoever implemented it. And sometimes nobody knows. It’s just been grandfathered in. And I think that that’s something that we can steal from Denmark is just the constant questioning. But in order to constantly question, you have to have energy. So how do we preserve energy? Because when our school days are set up the way that they are in the U.S. it’s really hard to have energy to question the system. 

GONZALEZ: Absolutely, which is how almost all marginalized people stay marginalized. 

RIPP: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: If their basic needs are their primary concern all the time. 

RIPP: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: And they’re just running on a hamster wheel, they just don’t have the energy to push back. So, so what would that, so what could that look like in the U.S. given, I don’t know, budget? You talk about the school day ending at 1 for students. 

RIPP: Yeah, 1:15 for younger students. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And obviously that’s a, we go to school 200 days in a year. We have more what we call all-around, all-year school in America, we have vacations sprinkled throughout. Our summer vacation is only six weeks. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: That’s obviously a change that many districts would not be able to take on. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So the calendar is different. 

RIPP: The calendar is different for Denmark. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that’s, you know, that’s governmental based. I see the benefit in it, but I do think that we should start questioning what, how can we change the time that we have with students so that it’s not this incessant push for constant curriculum? I mean, there’s a reason that the brain break industry is so huge in America, because we’re all dying. And so we need Go Noodle to refresh ourselves. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so some of the ways that I think about when you can’t actually shorten your days that you can restructure your day. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And so where are there more movement breaks, for example. And I’m not talking about a video. I’m talking about going outside, even with older kids and letting them play.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And letting them play risky. I think that also is huge. Like we were just talking about at our school, that tumbling and play-fighting is actually necessary for child development. For me coming from America, that’s crazy. Seeing in the schoolyard, kids punching and throwing each other and kicking each other, and I’m walking over there going, “Are you having fun?” And they’re like, “Yes!” And I’m like, “Okay!” But I’m thinking, “Oh my God. They’re punching each other.” Or we got some new play structures at my school, and we’ve already had one kid break her foot on it, and another kid got his finger broken in one of the go carts that we had. And that’s just how it is. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so I think about looking at the schedule and going, is this really what it needs to be? And potentially not making it a committee. Potentially not making it a committee. Potentially making it an in-school decision of going we are creative here. Can we pilot something? Because that is my favorite word in the U.S. Can we pilot something where our school day looks a little bit different? We know we can’t change the start and the end times. But what about between bells? What can we do that looks differently? And thinking differently about the time periods that we are with students, giving them longer recess, giving them more time to just be students so that when they come back in, we can concentrate in much better ways because we’re ready in a whole different way. And so I think about even just, I mean it sounds so simple, change your schedule. But start the conversation there. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: What are the barriers? I was listening to something smart on the internet, and they were talking about of course how the U.S. school schedule is not set up for child curiosity but for adult work times. And I was like, that’s exactly it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. So if we pretend the times cannot be changed, which in a lot of ways they can’t, okay, well, what can we do with the time that we have instead? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And also talking them outdoors even in bad weather. Our students are expected to have rain gear. Obviously that’s a resource thing. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: But rain gear is also fairly readily available in thrift stores and whatnot in Denmark, so you don’t have to spend a lot of money. But unless it is a nasty rainstorm outside, our students are outside in the rain. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: They’re outside in bad weather. And I think just getting them outside more, it’s free. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I go out with them all the time. I also don’t have to ask permission to go outside with my students. And so as an administrator, again, how bound are your teachers to ask permission for things? Because we get so tense and tight on the curricular minutes, because we feel like in the U.S. we are behind — we tend to lock everything down. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And so I can — Friday, I took my students out and we just played for 30 minutes because I wanted to. And no one came out and was like, what’s the educational purpose of this? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because they know. They can see that we are effectively building community. That’s my educational purpose. 

GONZALEZ: Which is something we give so much lip service to about building relationships in educational spaces. 

RIPP: Right, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: But it’s meant to just be squeezed in between the curriculum. 

RIPP: Yeah, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And not ever prioritized, really. 

RIPP: Or it’s an SEL lesson. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: “We are going to build community right now.” Oh my gosh. Teaching middle school with SEL and kids are like, I don’t want to share what my deepest, darkest fears are. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: No thank you. 

GONZALEZ: Right? 

RIPP: I was telling a good friend of mine, we just took a field trip to my house a week ago. And so I took my third grade class on the train, because yeah. So we went on the train. And then we took the bus, and then we were at my house for two hours where they jumped on the trampoline and got candy and got cake, and then we took the bus, and we took the train home. 

GONZALEZ: Oh my gosh. What a core memory for them. 

RIPP: And it was the best thing ever, yes. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: It’s the second time I’ve done it, and the reason I did it was because this was my new third grade, and they were like, “Are we going to go to your house?” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I was like sure. 

GONZALEZ: Oh my gosh. 

RIPP: And a friend of mine in America was like, what’s the educational purpose of that? Because they were just like, we would never be allowed to do that. And I was like, well if I really had to defend it, which I don’t because my principal was like, “Oh my gosh. That’s so fun.” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: That morning. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: 1. I didn’t have to ask permission. I don’t have to ask parents’ permission. I just need to go down and get the train card and tell our secretary obviously that we’re out of the building and all that, and parents know that we’re leaving. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And they know about it, but nobody has to give me permission. I don’t have to fill out a form that it says, “Here’s what we’re working on,” or “Here’s the reason for it.” If I really had to defend it though, they’re learning how to use public transportation, which they have to, whether they use it or not. There’s social, cultural rules that need to be learned. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And those are a lot better to practice in actual situations rather than pretending to be on a train. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: They also are working on community. We are working on how to be in public spaces. We are working on how to be visitors and guests at someone’s house. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: We’re working on communication skills. And then of course I could go back and we could write about it, we could draw about it, we could talk about it, whatever. But I didn’t have to do any of that. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And so again, my energy is reserved for the students because I’m not doing endless paperwork. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: My good ideas are not restricted by the process. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And that’s something that admins can do too. look at, what are your requirements for field trips? What are your requirements for special days? We have gotten so restricted in the U.S. 

GONZALEZ: We’re terrified of lawsuits. 

RIPP: We’re taught, we’re terrified, right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And granted, in Denmark, we’re not. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: We’re not terrified of lawsuits. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And that’s a culture thing, and it’s a lot more freeing. That’s why kids are climbing, you know, you see playgrounds in Denmark and you’re like, how is anyone allowed to be on these things? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Well yeah. Because we expect the kids to develop common sense. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But which restrictions can you release in your school in order to free up energy for your teachers? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: That’s something you can sit and think about. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. So maybe instead of thinking we could never do anything like that because our culture is so legalistic or whatever, let’s, within the culture that we have, so right off the top of my head I’m thinking, just, just be thinking of more little mini field trips that you could be taking to not even your personal home but almost anywhere. Does it have to be this major project? Does it have to be, yeah, we would still need to get parent permission slips, but I don’t think many teachers even think about doing little field trips because I’ve got to be getting to the curriculum or —

RIPP: Right. 

GONZALEZ: There’s always, there’s always reasons. 

RIPP: Or financial reasons or yeah, or you can’t, you can’t walk places. And I think that was one of the big things for me too in Denmark, we walk. We walk a lot. Like, we just did a field trip, we had to go perform some music on Thursday, and it was 2 kilometers away and we walked. Granted, it’s a walkable society. Not everybody lives in a walkable society. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But if you do, how can you get them out in the world more? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because that’s also part of the curriculum. And so things like that really ties back into one of the other topics that we have over here, which is this trust over control. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: There is a huge professional trust in me, and it’s given to me until I lose it. It’s mine to lose rather than mine to gain. And it’s very much the same way I work with my students. I give them my entire trust until maybe that changes and then we regain it somehow. And if we could change that mindset in administration, and I would actually say, I think almost all administrators I’ve ever met do trust their staff. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But I think they forget to say it. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I think when we don’t hear it enough, and you instead see the restrictions or you see the guidelines or you see the policies, you forget. And then you assume they don’t trust me because they’ve handed me yet another scripted curriculum where I’m getting a memo that we have to do this and this is how we have to run community building, and this is, you know, all of these policies we have in place. I think administrators need to remember the human side and telling teachers, I see you as competent. I see you as professional, and then give us time to actually work within those competencies. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: We’re very much, yeah, we’re very much treated as decision makers. We are very quick to change, which again, we’re not sitting and waiting for a superintendent. And we have a superintendent-ish figure in Denmark too who does make broad decisions. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But if my school wants to go out and buy a new reading curriculum, that trust is placed in the principal as reactive to that environment. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Versus with the superintendent. We can have different curriculums at the schools in my municipality because we’re serving different student populations. And I think that that’s powerful too, when you think about a superintendent’s role where we so often go, everything needs to be the same, there shouldn’t be a difference between School A and School B and School C. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But that’s not the reality because we’re sitting with quite different groups sometimes. And we need completely different things. And so that’s something too where there’s potentially a process that can be changed. And then I think the biggest piece too for me with the trust and the competency is that I am expected to only be a teacher when I’m at work. 

GONZALEZ: Talk more about that. 

RIPP: There’s no expectations for me to live some sort of holier superhero life, and I think about basic things like, I am not asked to edit or be very restrictive in what I put on my Facebook, for example. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: Like stupid stuff like that, right? 

GONZALEZ: Right? Yeah. 

RIPP: I remember sitting in a staff meeting with our district lawyer being told, you really shouldn’t post vacation pictures because it’s not professional for you to be seen in swimwear. 

GONZALEZ: Wow. 

RIPP: Or God forbid you have an alcoholic beverage in your hand. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And she was like, and I’m saying this to protect you because we’ve had parent complaints. We’ve had parents find out that these, their teachers were not as morally correct as we want them to be. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: We’re not placed on that pedestal in Denmark. We are normal people. We are allowed to post pictures from vacation. We are allowed to post pictures with a beer in our hand. In fact, we have our school and Christmas lunch parties at school. The students can walk by the window and see all their teachers drinking. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: While that is a wild experience for me, I would not, coming from the American school system, I think it humanizes us. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But that’s just a side note. I think the bigger thing is that I am given 40 hours to work, and that’s only because it includes my lunch. The standard workweek in Denmark is 37.5 hours. But 40 hours a week. And if I am working beyond those hours, I can go to my principal and say something has to give. 

GONZALEZ: Wow. 

RIPP: And they can look at my schedule. 

GONZALEZ: Imagine. 

RIPP: I know. And again, this is, you know, this is how it’s supposed to be everywhere. I’m sure it’s not. In fact, I know one of my friends is a teacher too, and it is absolutely not her reality in Denmark. But it is a heavy reality for many. I can legally, because we are a union country, which there are still unions in the United States, but we’re a little bit stronger I think than in some places, especially certainly in Wisconsin. In my union bylaws, there are laws that say, that I can go in and say, look, I cannot do my duties within the 40 hours that I’ve been allocated. And so you’re going to make me a list of priorities, and then I’m going to go down that list of priorities, and when I reach 40 hours, then I’m done. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And even if there are three more things on that list that I’m supposed to do, I can say to you, these are outside of my 40 hours. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Now obviously it means that I’m using my hours well. I’m not sitting and diddling and doodling whatever. But I have never had to do that, but I’ve certainly been in periods of time where I have been running so fast with so many extra meetings and so much extra paperwork, and so much prep and all of this where my 40 hours were not enough, and my principal said, “What can I give you? Do you need a day off where you can sit and prep and catch up on prep? Do you need to lose one of your teaching periods to get some extra prep for a short amount of time?” They see you as human, and they do not want you to go beyond the 40 hours, because if you’re beyond the 40 hours, you’re going to burn out, and then you’re going to be a poorer teacher. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. Let’s talk about those two options that this hypothetical principal just gave you though. A day off or lose one of your teaching duties for a while. My first thought is, sub days here are in my mind even as a teacher I remember thinking unless I write the best sub plans ever, it’s going to be kind of a waste of a day for the kids. 

RIPP: Oh yeah. Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Right? And then also this idea of losing one of your teaching duties for a while. Who’s doing that and what’s happening, you know? 

RIPP: Yeah, yeah. And so this has happened to me. I was taken out of PE this year for three months — two months? — to catch up on paperwork and meetings. And they handed it to a sub. So this to me is one of the biggest differences, and I feel like there’s a way it can be implemented in the U.S. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: We have permanent subs that are attached to our building. They’re all like 19, 20. They’re in their sabbatical year before they start university degrees. And they are hired, I think most of them are hired full time. 

GONZALEZ: So they’re just in the building every day, yeah. 

RIPP: They’re in the building unless they’re really isn’t a need for them, but there usually is. You know, and the amount fluctuates. We hire more as we need to. But because we have a permanent sub staff for the year, they get to know the population really well. We get to know them really well. You figure out which subs are better with the older kids, which subs are better with the younger kids. That’s one piece of the puzzle. And a lot of schools have that. During COVID where we all of a sudden had permanent subs. They came in because we were expecting a lot of illness, which is so funny because why wouldn’t we be expecting a lot of illness and sick days any year, right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But I know it’s a budget thing, but I feel like it’s money well spent because instead of training 50 or 100 subs, you’re saying you seven are the people that we’re going to put all our eggs in and you have a job for the entire school year, contract, you know, July 1st to June 30th. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: We’re going to rely on you. You’re going to be the one that we call, and we want you to get to know these kids and develop your own relationships. So 1. It’s a known adult fairly quickly. And often these subs stay for like one or two years. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: So they know each other, but the kids get to know them. 2. If you’re calling in sick, you’re not expected to make sub plans. And that to me was like, jaw on the floor. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, absolutely. 

RIPP: And whenever I tell people, they’re like, wait, what? Yeah. This can be like I’m sick because I’m home with my kiddo or I’m sick because I’m sick or I’m out with, on a sick leave. Now obviously if it’s a sick leave then there’s other things that go in place, but you’re still not expected to deliver sub plans because if you’re sick, you’re sick, and you cannot do your job. That puts the onus back on the subs. And so the subs are expected to come with either kind of readymade activities that they can use with any first grade class or second grade class. No, it’s not going to fit into your curriculum. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: But it’s going to maybe have something to do with math or with reading or with writing or whatever it is that they’re coming with. Or we typically have some programs on the computer that the kids know how to use that are like reading programs or math programs. They can pull those up. Or they play with them. They have a special day with them. And granted, obviously if you have a school day that’s eight hours, then you’re not playing with them all day. But again, if you think back to our system, if I’m sick, I’m not in the same class all day, so the one sub can go and do like this activity for two hours with my one class and two hours with my other class no problem. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But it puts responsibility back on the subs, but it’s the right kind of responsibility. It’s not you’re trying to be me. And you’re trying to keep the curriculum going even though I’m out sick and you’re only going to be a poor imitation of it anyway. It also says if we’re going to pay you well, and they’re paid pretty well, then we also expect you to be professional and actually do some research on your own. You need to come ready with some things. And I’m not talking like manipulatives or anything. I’m talking about easy things that you can pull out and use with classrooms. What it does, it allows me to be sick. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And it allows me to actually stay in bed. The only thing I have to do is to call in the morning between 6:30 and 6:45 or whatever the system is for a school and say, “Hey, I’m out sick.” I don’t have to give a reason what I’m sick with. That’s illegal. They can’t ask. And then they mark you sick the rest of the week. You then call in well. And so the next day if I’m still sick, they haven’t heard from me, they know. They already know. There’s a sub on me, and it’s probably going to be the same sub because we already know who the subs are. And so it also means that very, very rarely is there the perfect storm of where there’s not enough subs.

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And we just had one of those days on Friday, and it was just, there was lots of vacation and field trips and all sorts of crazy stuff. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: It is so rare that I get asked, can you cover something? 

GONZALEZ: Okay. During like your prep time?

RIPP: Yes, exactly. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. That’s a real exception. 

RIPP: It’s like, maybe twice in a year, maybe four times. Our secretary will put out a note, and she’ll say, hey, I don’t have a sub for this one period. Can someone help me out? 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And then we figure it out. And it’s not, “Hey, Pernille, can you come and do it?” And so again, there’s this protection of me as a human being. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: Granted, in Denmark you’re also allowed unlimited sick days, which again, it’s a different society. I know that’s never going to be implemented in the U.S. I know again also on mindset would be like well people would abuse that. No. There’s like, there’s guidelines and things in place. You don’t abuse it. You also get unlimited sick days with your children. But what it allows, or no, I take that back. That is a lie. You get four sick days with your child. They just changed it. 

GONZALEZ: For a sick kid, okay. 

RIPP: Yeah. Like a sick kid, you get the first day, and then you get three days after, and that’s a little bit union based. And then after that, then you are kind of screwed like you would be anywhere. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: What do you do if your kid is still sick? You got to figure stuff out. 

GONZALEZ: Sure. Yeah. I mean they don’t have unlimited money to just keep, yeah. 

RIPP: No. Oh, okay, your kid is sick. You’re home for two weeks. But if I’m sick, like I was sick with the flu for a week this year. And I was just sick. I didn’t make sub plans. I didn’t do anything. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And I think, obviously there’s, there’s things that cannot be implemented unless there was like a total change in the U.S. in many ways. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But having, having permanent subs again, that COVID practice, bring that back. 

GONZALEZ: We could, we could still do that, yes.

RIPP: And then change the expectations for what happens on a sub day. 

GONZALEZ: I mean, it sounds like a big piece of that working is this thing you led with at the beginning of not so much curriculum. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: So there’s, there’s space for things not going quickly, somebody being out for awhile. It’s just a much more slower-pace, human set of goals. 

RIPP: And we go deeper because of it. And we, and we bring people along, and not in a boring way where you’re like, oh my gosh, we’ve been doing “Romeo and Juliet” for two months. We need to move past it. But just like there’s a way to develop alongside it, and we differentiate so that those kids that get it, they’re doing more abstract things and all of that. But I think the idea that because I’m just a teacher, their whole world is not going to fall apart if I’m sick. They’re going to miss me, sure. I get a hug when I come back and “Where were you?” 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: But it’s not like the whole world ends, and, and I have this just fear of all of the learning stops. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Shift our learning. So what did we learn today? 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Well, we learned how to be respectful towards a different human being that maybe we don’t have the same relationship to. We again worked on community. Or maybe you have again some staff time where you go, “What could be the sub lesson plans?” And you just have those, and there’s something totally separate. And there’s tons of teachers that do this already in America. I mean, go on Teachers Pay Teachers and you can find like sub packages, right, of activities you can [inaudible] with your kids. 

GONZALEZ: Sure, yeah. 

RIPP: But implement the expectation into the school. Again, the mind shift, the mindset shift of if you’re out sick, please don’t write a sub plan. We’ve got it covered. 

GONZALEZ: Yes, and it’s just, there are other adults in the building that can handle this for you. 

RIPP: And it’s not your colleague next door. Right? It’s not, we’re calling Jenn going, “Pernille’s out sick. Can you think of something?” No. We’ve got it. The subs have it covered because the subs know our building. And I just think that there has to be a piece where that can be possible. Because we did it for a year during COVID, so why can’t we implement it now in the U.S.? And it has given me so much relief. 

GONZALEZ: I think so much of this also stems from the, that you guys don’t have high stakes testing. 

RIPP: We do. 

GONZALEZ: You do? Okay. 

RIPP: Yeah. No, we do. So we have national testing that starts in second grade, and it’s awful. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. Yeah. 

RIPP: Which is like our standardized testing in the U.S. But the, and the scores are public, and people definitely choose schools based on it. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. Okay. 

RIPP: And we have exams starting in eighth grade, so we’re done with public school, the ordinary public school after ninth grade. And you have to pass your exams. You have oral and written exams. So there is high stakes testing, but it’s not until much older that it really gets high stakes. 

GONZALEZ: Okay.

RIPP: Because developmentally, it’s not appropriate for younger students. And even if you do poorly in your ninth grade exams, there’s ways where you can go and do 10th grade, you can do other kinds of school in order to get the grades if you want to continue on in the educational system. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, okay. I mean, that’s a huge difference. Finishing in ninth grade is not —

RIPP: Yeah, and you’re not, I mean you can be totally done if you want to, but it’s usually just that you start specializing after that. And that’s obviously a different system altogether. So there is high stakes testing, but the way it is done is, the way it’s seen, we don’t have funding tied to it. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. That’s, the penalty for the schools — 

RIPP: So instead, in fact it’s kind of the opposite. If a school consistently does poorly on standardized testing, and I’m talking a little bit in my gray area because I haven’t been in this situation. I’m very much under the impression that there then is additional funding sent to the school. So again, it’s a curiosity of what’s going on. Is it socioeconomic reasons? What are the predictable factors surrounding schools that ends us here? 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: Or is it teaching? And whereas in America, so often like, “Oh, it’s the teaching. The teaching is horrible.”

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Right. 

RIPP: Fire the teachers or make the teachers go through more training, versus what is the, what is the neighborhood, the community around the school, and then again, teaching is seen as a, as a puzzle piece of that. And so it’s a, it’s a more humane way of looking at standardized testing. The experience itself is still horrible for students and for teachers. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: It’s still awful, but the repercussions of it are different. 

GONZALEZ: And yeah, so your definition of high stakes is very different, because the stakes in the U.S. are teachers get fired.

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Schools get put under, whatever. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: But nobody’s getting more money — 

RIPP: Yeah, no, no, no. 

GONZALEZ: — to fix, to help with the problem. 

RIPP: In fact, you could lose stuff. Because you’re probably losing students. 

GONZALEZ: Right. Right. 

RIPP: Well, I think so. And I think also the, a big thing that I wish we could shift in America more is that I’m only seen as one piece of the puzzle of a child’s development. Because our society’s set up in a way to where parents hopefully, and it’s not true for everybody, can pick up their kid by 5 o’clock, 4 o’clock, 3 o’clock, you know. Then they also have a piece of the developmental puzzle placed on their shoulders. And so if a child is not progressing, let’s say in reading, sure, we look at my, my, my teaching and what’s happening with the child, but we’re certainly also looking at what’s happening at home, what are the resources at home. What can be accessed at home. What is placed on the parents. And not every parent. I mean, there’s plenty of people here who live on the brink of poverty. We have homelessness in Denmark as well. Obviously you have some of the same societal issues, however not in the same degree as in the United States. But I’m not seen as the whole reason a child finds success or failure. And that also frees me up to feel like a human being. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because we don’t have to be everything for a child. I was just talking to a friend of mine, and we were talking about the integration of school sports in America, right? How even sports are a part of the schools and, and so all of a sudden now, the school’s also providing all of the social activities, and we’re providing food, and we’re providing social work, and we’re providing psychological help, and all of these things. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And in Denmark, that’s just not the case. You are the school. You are maybe providing food in the after school hours. If you’re assigned that, but you’re not a social worker. You’re not laundry services. You’re not the food pantry, and you’re not doing sports. That’s all out in the community and at accessible prices. And so it allows us to really stay within the boundary of what a school is supposed to be. And that allows me to just be a teacher. 

GONZALEZ: Right, right. You, let me, let me, let’s, or, I don’t think we’ve talked about this yet. What is your daily, you have to be at school at 8 or before? What does your day look like? 

RIPP: 7:50. 

GONZALEZ: 7:50. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And you’re actively teaching —

RIPP: Until 1:15. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So straight through from 8 until 1:15? 

RIPP: Yep. I have four class periods. 

GONZALEZ: So that’s like five hours, basically. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And then, you know, I’ll have recess. And I have two recess duties. 

GONZALEZ: During that five hours? 

RIPP: Yeah. There’s two recesses. And with, I eat with the kids. So they eat lunch in the classrooms. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: So they don’t have to go to a cafeteria. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: They eat with us. We have 15 or 20, we have 10 minutes for the snack in the morning, and then we have 20 minutes or 15 minutes depending on the age group for eating and, you know, for lunch. And then they go out to recess. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And then teacher side of the recess duties, I have recess duty twice a week. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: Where I’m, where I’m the teacher on duty. But the rest of the time is duty free.

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And so I, it’s not just their lunch, right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: So I get to then go and have 30 minutes duty free where I get to not talk school. It is not considered prep time. 

GONZALEZ: This is still pre-1:15?

RIPP: This is still pre-1:15. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, wow. Okay. 

RIPP: Yeah. So I teach four hours, like four one-hour sessions a day. 

GONZALEZ: Got it. 

RIPP: And if you have, in my school, if you have the older kids, you teach five hours. But teaching-wise, I teach, I’m in front of students 20 hours a week out of my 40 hours. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And that’s it. That is very different from school to school. I think most schools in Denmark are around 24 teaching hours, but you certainly also have some colleagues, unfortunately, at some schools who have, like, 36 teaching hours. That would be in special education schools. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: But for our school, and actually next year, I’m only in front of students, with me planning the curriculum, 19 hours out of my 40. 

GONZALEZ: Wow. Okay. 

RIPP: And then I have one hour built in of resource where I’m with another teacher. We’re going to use it whichever way we want. And then the 20 hours outside of that are broken down, and it is by the hour as far as, for the year, how many meetings we’re allowed to have, how much is for paperwork, how much is for prep, all of this. We used to have an agreement at our school that out of the 40 hours, 35 had to be placed at school and 5 could be placed wherever. So you could go to a colleague’s, you could go to a coffee shop, you could go home. I could place it at 5 o’clock in the morning when I’m up. 

GONZALEZ: Sure, yeah. 

RIPP: But again, that professional autonomy, right. Next, or actually now, because we just renegotiated union contracts as a, as a, as a country, so it’s a nationwide union. We don’t have the, or I’m sorry, in my municipality, we don’t have the 35-5. We have the, you have to be there for your meetings but really any other time, you can choose to leave. 

GONZALEZ: You can be doing it anywhere. 

RIPP: Yeah. You can be doing it anywhere. And again, that tells me that I am trusted as a professional to get my things done. I don’t need my principal to come by at 3:30 in the afternoon and go, “Are you still here?” “Are you still working?” I don’t have to sign out. If I have to unfortunately put a dentist appointment at 2:30 on a Thursday then they’re assuming that I’m still going to get my job done. And that makes me feel like an adult. Versus having to sign, I remember in the U.S., if I had to run to the gas station, I had to sign out because lord forbid if they couldn’t find me during my prep hour. 

GONZALEZ: Yep or whatever. 

RIPP: It’s so crazy how we are seen as, I don’t know, almost too vital. 

GONZALEZ: Or, or it’s more, it is a lack of trust. I don’t know if it’s a vital as much as it’s the, it’s an accountability thing of just, we need to keep tabs on you. We don’t trust that you… It’s almost like they think teachers are going to just escape and screw around with their time, with their very limited time. 

RIPP: Again, yeah. So, so who are we creating the system for? We’re creating the system for the few that don’t know how to be responsible adults. 

GONZALEZ: Exactly. 

RIPP: And so we’re restricting all of the responsible adults. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

RIPP: And so my, I mean, and I still feel pressured for time. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Even with 20 hours of prep, and I actually had that conversation with my principal at one point. He was like, I give you 20 hours. How can you not have enough? And I was like, and I, and I had kind of a special situation with lots of extra meetings, and I was part of some committees and stuff like that. And he said, okay, what can we remove from your plate? He’s like, because this isn’t how it should be. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And so I think again as an administrator, if you have those teachers that do somehow still have a little bit of prep time that isn’t tied up in other things, maybe making sure that they’re not the ones that are also sitting and volunteering for everything, because that’s me. I’m the constant volunteer. And my principal was the one that stepped in and was like, okay. Let’s, let’s get you out of some things. 

GONZALEZ: So how do we do that in the U.S.? How do we get, because I can’t imagine a scenario where parents are going to be like, yeah, cool, my kid can be done with school at 1 in the afternoon. 

RIPP: No. 

GONZALEZ: So like how would we give our teachers more prep time without bigger budgets? 

RIPP: Yeah. I wish I had the answer. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I think I could make a lot of money. But I think it’s, I think, and you can tell, a lot of professional development on that. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But I think where it looks at is it’s not so much that we can shorten the school day. It’s more that we can protect the time that teachers are given for prep. And so again, are we, what are we being asked to do during our prep? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And is it really a prep? If we start to look at, for example, even within the elementary model, instead of having one single classroom teacher, could it be two teachers that are in charge of that one classroom? And then you switch up the schedule so that you’re not teaching the same schedule every single day. So for example, my schedule is different depending on the day of the week. And that means that some days I have two periods of Danish with one class and sometimes I only have one. But it means that there’s other teachers coming in and running the ship. And so imagine if we took that kind of schedule flexibility and said, you know, you have three third grade classrooms, and you have three third grade teachers. Who would like to be kind of like the science teacher? Who would like to do Danish or English? Who would like to do math? Who would like to do this? And then you make kind of more of an integrated schedule so that preps could maybe be bulked together longer. That was one of my biggest problems as an elementary teacher was that my prep was 30 minutes. That was the special time when they went to music for 30 minutes. 

GONZALEZ: You can’t concentrate, yeah. 

RIPP: You can’t get anything done. You just got started. And so if it’s not one teacher that the whole schedule is dependent upon, but instead kind of a mix of people, can you then, you know, bulk up some things? Also, who’s, you know, can we make some of those specials longer so that preps are longer? When was the last time that we really sat down and questioned our schedule structure? 

GONZALEZ: And that’s really it, because I suspect that we could sit here for another hour and think about all different ways to solve this. But really, within every individual school building, you’ve got lots of people who probably already have ideas for their specific situation. 

RIPP: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: “Why don’t we try this? Why don’t we try that?” And what you need is somebody in leadership to want to do it. 

RIPP: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: And to have that piloting mindset of, “Let’s try it, because this could be so much better.” 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And so protecting and then getting more creative with the way that the schedule is written to try to free up more sustainable blocks of time for teachers to actually —

RIPP: Yeah. So it’s better prep, you know. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: So maybe it’s not the 30 minutes every day or whatever. I, I don’t mind that I teach, you know, I am back to back practically. Besides, obviously, recess. But I get to 1:15, and I’m like, “Hoo, I need to pee,” you know. “I need to drink a gallon of water, and I need to pee.” But then I’m like, and now I get time. And so again, our specials in the afternoon somehow or for some students, are they only in the morning, and that’s where your prep lies? I’ve seen districts do the one-hour later start on Mondays in order to get more sustainable, you know, staff time, PD time, meeting time. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: If we already know that a lot of our teaching time is going to be taken with IEP, paperwork, meetings, or whatever it is, or whatever it is we prioritize within our school, how can we then set up sustainable time structures for that? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I think so much of what we sit with in the U.S. is predictable, and yet every year we look around and we go, “How did we get here?” Why are we all so busy? When it’s literally the same busy that we’ve experienced every year. And so I think if we can’t say, okay, we can’t, we can’t create shorter school days because that’s just the system. Well, what can we do with the time that we then have? 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Does a period in your school have to be 45 minutes versus an hour? What’s the difference? I think about the school districts that have gone to blocks, or that have gone to one hour instead of 45. And so then instead of saying, okay, we’re going to have, you know, we’re going to have math for one hour every single day. Well maybe we have math 90 minutes one day and, or two days, and then we miss out on math one whole day. It’s not going to, it’s not, the plane isn’t going to explode just because we don’t have math one day. And I think that’s the fear that’s created in us in the U.S. because of the urgency culture. Because so much rides on our shoulders when we’re in the U.S. We feel like if I miss one day, if I miss one class, if I miss one period, if I miss one teaching opportunity, we’re never going to get to where we need to go, and then I’m a failure and the students are failure, and who knows what their life is going to be like. I don’t have that. 

GONZALEZ: We mistake in the U.S. too, we mistake quantity for quality a lot of times too. And just think, if we just do more of it, the kids are going to learn better, which is just, has never really proven out. 

RIPP: No. 

GONZALEZ: And so it sounds like you guys spend much more of your focus on quality. 

RIPP: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: And forgo the quantity and actually see the quantity for the counter productiveness that it actually has in it sometimes. 

RIPP: Yeah. Fewer things better. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And granted again, my own personal experience. I’m sure there’s teachers in Denmark that are going to go, “Oh my gosh, not my school.” 

GONZALEZ: “Where is she teaching?” 

RIPP: Yeah. like, “Let me go work there.” But I think, like, that’s what, that’s what we’ve been told is make sure that it’s good. Make sure that you’re doing good teaching. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: But what is good teaching? 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And I think for so long, we’ve been under the impression that good teaching means a long checklist of all the things we’ve done, and all the things we’ve mastered, supposedly. And instead of going, “Let’s cut some of that back, and let’s make it actually doable within the structures that we have.” And that also includes, like you and I have talked a lot about, about, like, what are the students saying in all of this? How are we including their voices? What changes would they love to see? And what ideas do they have? Like, if we’re talking about more movement or more freedom or, or more whatever, what would their day, you know, look like for them? What do they wish they had time for? And I was just writing today on my blog, I was writing about how I’m purposefully trying to bore my students, and it’s something that I’m going to continue to do next year. And I felt really weird putting it out publicly, because boredom is such a bad word in education. 

GONZALEZ: It’s having a comeback, though, I think. Yes. 

RIPP: I know, and I love it, and like, yes, I’m here for it, because for so long, we were told, be more exciting and just more, more, more. Like more noise, more whistles, more bells. Switch activities all the time so they’re constantly alert, and do a brain break, and you know, get them up and move and dance. And instead, I’ve been, like, slowing it down, and we’ve been stripping things away. And their writing periods have been longer so they have to sit in the boredom of writing, and in the doneness of writing. Which is so hard even for adults. Or instead of a brain break, it’s like no, we’re just going to sit here, and we’re just going to sit and be quiet and maybe have conversation, but we’re not going to turn anything on. Or when they’re reading, when I’m reading aloud, no, you don’t get to do anything. You get to lie on the floor if you want, but no, you’re not doodling. You’re not — you’re just here. 

GONZALEZ: Just, just edit things down, yes. 

RIPP: I know. And I think again, in the U.S. you can do that too, and people are. This is happening in pockets. But we need administrators on board to go, you know, what? You’re right. This is too much. This is, this is, we can’t do all of this, so what can we strip away? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Also to prevent burnout, because the better and healthier the adults are in the building, the better teaching you’re going to get. And I feel like that’s really the philosophy, at least in my experience in teaching in Denmark. It’s how do we protect the adults as much as we can in order for those schools to be ready for the kids that show up no matter how they show up? 

GONZALEZ: Right. Before we, because I, we’ve pretty much covered all of the adult stuff. Before we start just taking down and seeing, because we’ve also covered a lot of the kid stuff too. But, in a minute, let’s go through and see if there’s other stuff that we didn’t get to. But one thing I would just kind of want to come back to for a second is along with this idea of protecting prep time for teachers, you mentioned this other room that you go to with the teachers. How much of a factor do you feel like that is, and/or, because I’m thinking about my sister who is a teacher, and during her prep, we’ll be on Voxer sometimes, and she gets interrupted like seven times during her prep in her room. Whether it’s an announcement that’s getting in the way of her concentration or kids coming in to do things or other teachers coming in to talk. When Mark Barnes and I wrote “Hacking Education” 10, 15 years ago, one of our hacks was find a room that teachers can go to and shut the door where they will not be disturbed so that they can actually prep. So speak to this whole idea of a third location in general where teachers are either able to collaborate with each other more because we’re in silos all the time, and/or actually do some prep work. Because we don’t have either of those things in the U.S., really. 

RIPP: It’s so weird to me. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that’s, at first I was like, what do you mean I don’t, I go sit somewhere else? Like, I want to stay in my classroom with my things. And then my colleague was like, this is weird. You need to come hang out with us. And I was like, okay. And so 1. The door is locked. So students, they don’t come in because they’re busy elsewhere. Like either they’re, obviously my prep is in the afternoon when students are done with school. So we don’t have students coming in. They’re in after school at the school. They might be noisy in the hallway, but we ignore that. We don’t have announcements. That’s not a common thing in Denmark. We don’t have speaker systems. But also, depending on who you’re sitting with, I mean some are chatty. But because we’re all there to prep, I have noise canceling headphones, and so people respect that. If I’m wearing my big headphones, they know, she’s trying to get work done. This is not the time to chat. You also have some, you have some frank conversations about, like, hey, if I’m coming in early in the morning, it’s actually not to catch up with you. It’s because I need to get stuff done. 

GONZALEZ: Right, right. 

RIPP: We also have scheduled team time where it is the collaborative conversations. We have that every, every other week, and that was a choice we were given. We could schedule it as often as we want. And so we also know that bigger discussions, they get, they get parked until that time. And if we really need to talk something through during that prep time, we can look at each other, because we’re sitting in the same room. And we can say, hey, do we have 15 minutes where we can sit down and talk about this? When would that work? And often people are like, oh, I can do it right now. But having to physically walk away from the classroom space also lessens my ownership over the physical space, which is one more relief in my world. It’s not just my space. It’s actually the students’. And so this isn’t, “Welcome to Mrs. Ripp’s room” like it would be in the U.S. It’s not all, I mean, there’s my stuff in there but there’s certainly also the kids’ stuff. So I don’t have to maintain it in the same way. You would go into most Danish classrooms, depending on their age group, but particularly older students, and they would look like a lot of traditional old high school classrooms. Very barren. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Obviously times have changed in high school as well. But it means that there’s less pressure for me to be performative in my classroom. I’m a guest moving in and out, and really the responsibility lies with the students. My professional work happens in an office, which again, gives me a degree of professionalism. I’m given a desk with a computer. And the stuff that I need. 

GONZALEZ: You don’t have to worry about kids coming and touching your desk because it’s an adult office. 

RIPP: No, no, no. And so it also shows that separation, that there’s hours in my day where I am physically teaching and on. And then there are hours of the day where I am prepping and I am not on. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And it means that I also get to stop my brain process. Because I can be like right now I’m in the moment with students. I’m not running copies. I’m not thinking about that thing that I need to just quick, get on my computer and do because that will make my life easier. Nope. I’m given this block of time in the afternoon where I’m not in front of students, I don’t have to navigate children, I don’t have to censor myself in the same ways that I do. I can, I can sit and be free and drink my tea and get my stuff done. I think it’s huge because it also forces you to just shift your mindset. I am leaving my students behind. And I’m now thinking about pedagogy. And of course I’m still thinking about students, but I’m thinking about how are we going to get there. And that helps. 

GONZALEZ: And this also means that you’re not responsible for decorating a classroom. Nobody is. 

RIPP: No. And we decorate it. I think mine is considered highly decorated. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah? 

RIPP: Yeah, it’s the American teacher in me. 

GONZALEZ: But you share it with someone else, do you not? Or do you not —

RIPP: I do —

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: — with three other people, and they’re like, oh, that’s Pernille. 

GONZALEZ: But everybody can put up what they —

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Because I’m thinking, I’d probably want some anchor charts or something. 

RIPP: Yep. They have it. And we talk about it, and we take stuff down too. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay. 

RIPP: So you often don’t, at least in my experience, we don’t have the super poster-covered classrooms because that interferes with the other teachers. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. It’s not good for kids anyway. 

RIPP: Exactly. So it’s very like, this is what we’re using right now. And we have kind of designated sections in the classroom. And I muscled my way in. I was like, I want a carpet. I want a gathering space, these things. And they were like, that’s fine. And then I was like, I want a classroom library, and they were like, that’s fine. And we just talk about it. But it also means that because I don’t feel like it’s my space, I’m also not investing a lot of my money into it. It’s a lot easier for me to be like, I guess we just don’t have those things. Because I’m not going to buy it, or I can go and ask for budget for it. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So that, because I think that’s a really big interesting difference. Okay. So let’s shift, I mean we’ve already, we’re way over an hour at this point. But let’s, let’s hit on some of the most important differences for students, which obviously these are things that are going to impact you as a teacher too. But what are some of the biggest differences in terms of how students experience school in Denmark? 

RIPP: So at least in my experience, and talking both with my children at different schools and my own teaching experience, grading doesn’t happen until seventh grade, and even then, it’s really minimal. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: So I don’t do grades, which means students are not evaluated and, and, and are not comparing themselves in the same way. And so I think there’s a lot more space to just be on your learning progression and developing the way that you’re expected to. And that also means that I don’t need to constantly have assignments that I can grade in order to produce something to share with home. We have one parent teacher conference expected every year, and sometimes we have two. And so parents are also trained to not need constant evaluative things. We also have very little homework. And again, that’s dependent on the school and also depending on the teaching philosophy. But it means again that kids come and give us the best hours, and then they’re expected to be kids after that. And while we certainly support reading, it puts a focus on playing and on childhood and on family time. That it’s really expected that if there is homework, it should be, it should be very specific and manageable. And if not, then there will be pushback because kids are expected to be kids. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I think that also allows kids to really go out and just get all their energy out and make connections. Being social in Denmark and creating lifelong connections is highly, highly valued in society. And that doesn’t happen through homework. And so again, it’s that separation between school and home life is really protected. And evenings are really protected. Like, like I had the audacity of sending home some books that we were given as a research project, and a lovely parent was like, “I would like you to, to just focus on what you’re doing in school, and then I will — “ 

GONZALEZ: “You worry about yourself.” 

RIPP: Yeah. Like, that’s nice. And he was so lovely about it. That’s nice, but no thanks. Like, we’ve got it covered. And I was like, at first I was like, wow. And then I was like, you know what? But that’s true, right? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Like, I am given this slice of their time, and it’s really important time in their day. But then families want their own time, and it has changed me as a parent. I am so much more present for my own children. Because they’re home earlier, and they’re much more refreshed. They’re not dragging themselves through the door, you know. They might be for other reasons. We have high expectations in Denmark, but again, that lessened urgency culture also feels that kids, kids are like, I’ll get there. It’s going to happen. We have this very big belief that it’s going to happen. I mean, and one of the big things for me, especially as a, as a young kid teacher, early grade teacher, is that they’re, they’re coming into kindergarten, which we call zero grade, and they don’t necessarily know their letters, and that’s okay, you know? Reading development really doesn’t start until first grade in Denmark. Depending on where you are, and first grade in Denmark is what we would consider to be second grade in America. 

GONZALEZ: And I remember hearing this, more like age 7 is when kids are expected to sort of start learning to read, which is so —

RIPP: Yeah. Six, 7, yeah. Right in there. And it’s like, obviously like our zero grade teachers, they work on letter sounds and all of that, and they have some kids that can read. I’m about to learn more about my incoming first graders. But it is very normal that in the beginning of first grade, a lot of kids can’t read. And so our whole curriculum is already kind of slowed down because of that. 

GONZALEZ: Right, yeah. There’s a lot you can’t do if they can’t read, so yeah. 

RIPP: Yeah. And so that’s where you’re at, and that’s where you’re at with the writing and your, and so I think the pressure is, is not on in the same way of, like, oh my gosh —

GONZALEZ: These kids are behind, yeah. 

RIPP: — you’re coming into kindergarten and you can’t even, you don’t even know your letters in kindergarten in America. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: And it’s like you are so far behind. And I also think that that again just lowers the bar for kids. It’s like, it’s okay that I’m coming in, and I’m still learning what are the letters in my name, and how do I write my name. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. What do you think about that? As an ELA teacher —

RIPP: I love it. 

GONZALEZ: You like that more? I mean in terms of —I guess if we’re going to compare and measure, I mean because, we push, we do push reading at a young age, and our reading proficiency in the United States is nothing to brag about with older kids, so clearly there’s something, do you think it’s actually better to, to just wait? 

RIPP: I mean, I think it also depends on the kids. Because some kids are ready to read at that age. But I think what the Danish system allows us to do is to be much more mindful of what the kid is ready for. 

GONZALEZ: To watch for signs of readiness. 

RIPP: Mhmm, yep. 

GONZALEZ: As opposed to pushing them early. 

RIPP: Yep. And so I, that’s what I love about it. It makes my job a lot harder, because I sit with classrooms, you know where kids are still, even in third grade I have kids who are still just kind of getting really comfortable with very short sentences, and then I have kids that are reading Harry Potter, and you know really long books. And, it certainly makes for interesting differentiation. But I think as far as the stress that we place on children, and that then get placed on families who feel like their kid is completely behind. I think that is lessened because we’re actually following a much more developmentally appropriate progression through reading. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, but that third grader that’s still getting used to the idea —

RIPP: Yeah, those we are concerned about, yeah. And there’s extra —

GONZALEZ: You do, okay. 

RIPP: Yeah. There’s extra resources wrapped around a child like that. There’s, you know, we’re testing. But even like, I think about a testing system for dyslexia. My own daughter was tested already in first grade, and certainly, yep, dyslexia. Whereas in Denmark, you don’t get tested until third or fourth grade. And so they are also allowing, and that’s, you know, for good for, for bad. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Because I do believe in early prevention, can do a lot. But I think again, it shows too that we know that kids will just take longer to develop. And so we’re allowed that, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Are the kids that pick it up later — are there, are there scenarios where they sort of catch up quicker? Do you know what I mean? 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Could you tell most of the time in sixth grade who started reading later and who didn’t? Are the kids that are reading Harry Potter in second grade going to always be way ahead? 

RIPP: I don’t think they will be. I think that —

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: — as the others catch up, that’s what I’m noticing. I have, I taught a kiddo where first and second grade I was like, oh my gosh, what is going on? This is not working. I don’t know what else I can do. Really, really just like so concerned. And then over the summer, he came in in third grade and was all of a sudden reading. And it was like the whole thing just finally clicked into place. 

GONZALEZ: It just clicked. 

RIPP: Yeah. And he’s catching up. Like, he is so, he is so fast now moving in to harder and harder texts and writing. And everything is just like falling into place. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I sit there and think, oh my gosh. All this worry and for nothing. And of course there are kids where that’s not going to be the case. But I’m noticing that the kids, like, when it happens, then it really starts to furiously happen. And because they, their, I haven’t sat there in conferences, you know, going, “Oh my gosh, I’m so concerned, I’m so concerned, I’m so concerned.” 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: I don’t know. I just, it’s just a much calmer approach. It seems like a, just a, I don’t know, it’s healthier for society in general. But I mean we also have reading proficiency difficulties in Denmark as it shows, and we certainly have a huge reading crisis like you have in the, like we have in the states as far as reading joy. And I mean, I think again, we need to be looking outside of the schools, because I think about the way that our brains are being rewired because of our dopamine seeking. I think that has a lot more to do with it than whatever reading programs that we’re using in school. 

GONZALEZ: I’m reading the best book right now about that, and I’m going to be hopefully interviewing this guy very soon, because there’s, there’s a lot of data now about, a lot of things that I didn’t even think of. 

RIPP: Right. 

GONZALEZ: But it almost all relates to the technology. And it’s not just the smartphones, but it’s putting them on devices in school way too much and all kinds of stuff that’s just really, yeah, having a negative. So that’s to come. Okay. Let’s hit on a couple more of these, these bullet points in terms of the differences with kids. You talk about regulation versus control in terms of the way that the school is structured. 

RIPP: Yeah. I mean, I think just, there’s just a lot more freedom given to kids, right? And so, I mean even something as simple as risky play, we are expecting you to develop your own boundaries for what is safe and unsafe behavior. And, and, and that to me means that I can look a child, even a young child, a first grader, a zero grader, and go, “Did you think this through?” And, and have that conversation with them versus swooping in and going, “Oh my gosh, this is unsafe. Stop right now.” you know, and, and it takes a lot to step back as an adult and go, “That looks unsafe.” And then to consider, instead of stopping, going, how can I approach this from a learning, from a learning degree? From a learning angle, right? To ask the child, could this become dangerous? Sure. Okay. What can you do to prevent that? And constantly putting the onus of the thinking on them. And so risky play allows us to have those conversations with kids. Again, we’re not a, we’re not a suing culture. You don’t sue in Denmark. So it’s a lot easier to promote risky play over here. Because the responsibility’s placed on the child. Like, if somebody falls down and breaks their arm, it’s not a lack of supervision. It’s because the child made a mistake. That’s easier in a society that has universal health care. Right? Because I can go and I can call an ambulance and know that nobody is going to get a huge bill. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: But there’s ways to still implement risky play. I think about, like, we get snow in Denmark. Not often, but we get some in winter. And we have designated snowball fight areas, you know? And we tell the kids. If you go into that, then you know you may get a snowball straight in the face. And it may hurt. And if you’re standing close to that area, this may also happen. And it means that the kids that want to play with the snow and play rough, they go there. And the kids that want to make the snowmen and just bounce around in the, in the very little snow, they go somewhere else. But we don’t stop it. And so I’m not out at recess yelling at children going, “Put the snow down,” you know. Teaching in Wisconsin, middle school. “Put the snow down. You’re not allowed to.” 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: I mean I was constantly the one that was stopping children. And here instead it’s like, okay, let’s make this safe. Or as safe as we can. You know, so just things, so, so, and that’s just recess. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: I think about because the classroom is not mine and different teachers are coming in, there are periods of time where students are sitting alone. And they’re expected to be able to sit alone. Now obviously not for long stretches of time. We do have supervision duties. But I know that I can walk out of the classroom and go into my other classroom and they can be alone, and we are, they are expected to make good decisions even when they’re 5 or 6 years old. We don’t. I mean, we certainly walk together. We talk about how to walk in the hallways and all of that. But I think about, they also have their own backpacks that they have to bring to school. I don’t have a plethora of school supplies for them. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: All of that, they’re supposed to come with from school. They’re also supposed to bring in a lunch. We don’t serve them lunch. There is some food, there are schools that serve food in Denmark. But that’s more as a community thing. It’s not so much as a socioeconomic thing. It’s a way to work on community and sitting down and eating together as a community piece. By like, they have to be in control of a backpack. They have to bring their stuff with them. They have to know that when it’s raining and they’re about to go out to recess, they should put on rain gear. We are constantly asking children in Denmark to take responsibility in ways that we don’t do in America. And it was so stark to me, moving over here with my children, and my youngest was in third grade and her teacher going, “She doesn’t even know how to pack her backpack or pack a lunch.” And I go, she’s never been asked to. Her backpack was more for show because all of her supplies were at school. And they had school lunch. And so she didn’t have to stand in the kitchen with me and go what, what should, what should I put in my lunch today? And what are the materials that you need, and because the schedule changes, you need different things on different days. 

GONZALEZ: So in the U.S., a lot of times we, we just supply everything for two reasons, which you know. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Socioeconomic differences. 

RIPP: Obviously, yep. 

GONZALEZ: And then also, it just makes it so much easier to start teaching if you don’t have to wait for everybody to scramble for supplies or this kid just doesn’t have anything. And so it’s just simpler to just provide. So how do you handle those situations then? 

RIPP: We have extra school supplies. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: And so for kiddos, you know, that, especially now, we have another month to go. I have a lot of kids who are like, I don’t have a pencil. But I was talking to a colleague about it, and I said, I have some pencils obviously always at the ready. But I said, what do you do in Denmark in that situation? And she goes, well, you write home, and you say they better get some pencils. And I was like, what if they can’t afford it? Then they better figure out a way. And while that was a little maybe not, a little too harsh for my, my heart —

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: I found it interesting that it was this, well, you are expected to be able to provide for your child. And granted, the Danish government sends us child checks. Every three months we get money in order to provide for our children. And so, and that money is designated for new rain gear, for school supplies. I mean obviously you can use it for whatever, but it’s also the Danish government’s way of going, you should be supplying these things for the children because that should not be on the school. And so again, different society. I think there is a way though, I think when we look at it as a symptom of removing control from students, I think It can be an interesting conversation within schools. Because we are so protected in the U.S. Even in middle school, with PBIS and how are they supposed to walk, and how are they supposed to dress and all of these things. And we make the, the cafeteria rules of we’ve even had where they had designated seats in order to try to take misbehavior down, and all these things. And then they come out in public and it’s like they explode, and they don’t know what to do. And it’s because we’re just removing control from them in so many small instances. Why are they not allowed to decide, and maybe make poor decisions, of course. About where they sit. And then when that one kid makes a poor choice, you can go, why was this a poor choice? And bring them into the conversation. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And I’ve talked about that for years, and I talk about it in “Passionate Learners” a lot, one of my books, right, this idea of co-creating student spaces with students so that they know how to be responsible for their own independence. And we have this saying in Denmark, and it’s called independence under-responsibility. And that’s really what it is. Here are the expectations. Here’s the box that we need you to function within, so how are we going to function within that? 

GONZALEZ: As I’m listening to you, I’m also thinking about myself as a teacher and why I would have leaned more toward the structure everything, provide everything, because in my brain, the academics are the only curriculum. And I forget that the curriculum, a huge chunk of it, is just teaching them how to be people. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And how to live in a society, and how to make good decisions. And so if you shift your mindset to that, then spending extra time talking about why did you make that decision? You forgot your pencil. How can you get your — it’s not a waste of time. It is part of what we should be also teaching them. And not just, oh, this is taking us away from the academics. 

RIPP: And it’s the integrated SEL lessons, rather than the standalone. It’s the community work. And I just think about it, and I did it for years. That’s my entire teaching philosophy is this way in the U.S. now I just happen to be in a system that supports it from a country level. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Absolutely. 

RIPP: That are we expected to create children that know how to be responsible children. Just like why I take them on the train. I am supposed to be teaching them, alongside their parents, how do you act on public transportation in Denmark? In order to not be a nuisance to other people. Because we don’t have this idea of, like, well, children, oh, they can just be loud. No. You’re in a public space. You need to know how to behave. And so there’s also this idea of self-regulation, of giving kids time to go, how did that, how did you end up in this situation, and what can we do differently next time? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And that’s, you know, in a lot of schools you’ll have something called the class’s hour. And it’s about regulation, and it’s about community, and it’s all about talking about how can we be in community and make this function for everybody. And also fundamentally, schools are for community and not for individualism in Denmark. I mean, and that’s a whole structural piece too, that your expected to be able to fit into the frames of school because you’re expected to be able to function within a community. And right now there’s a big pushback on a lot of individualism and a lot of specific agreements for this one child, and there’s a governmental pushback too going no, this isn’t what school is meant to be. This isn’t about just betterment of the one child. It’s about functioning as a community. But I think like you said, the shift going back to, we’re not just here for curriculum that we’re drowning in. The entire process is curriculum. Then we can step away from going okay, well you’re taking time out of curriculum to do something else.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: Well no, the entire experience is curriculum. And I think back to that the time together in schools should be one big experiment of making poor choices, because this is the only place that we are protected by hopefully caring adults that will help us have these conversations in community of how our choices are affecting ourselves and others. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: And yet we’re so tight, and we’re so strict in America. I mean, oh my gosh, we practice how to walk in the hallways and how to come in through the door, and where to hang your backpack. Like, all these things were so engrained in me as an elementary teacher. That they were perfect little soldiers so that I could pass them on as perfect little soldiers, and instead they had no autonomy and they didn’t know how they needed to work or how they could learn. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, no internal guidance that they were developing on their own. 

RIPP: No, no. But you can change that system, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit to change that system. 

GONZALEZ: That, OK. I’m going to ask you two more questions because one is going to just be about where people can find you online and what we want to link to

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: And then I have a final question based on what we’ve been talking about. So your instagram is what? 

RIPP: @pernillesripp

GONZALEZ: Okay, @pernillesripp at Instagram. 

RIPP: Yep, yep. That’s my blog too, pernillesripp.com. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. And then your book, you’ve got a couple of books. 

RIPP: Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: But the book that I said, do you want me to, you know, tell people about one of your books, and you wanted to talk about “Passionate Learners.” 

RIPP: Yeah. So “Passionate Learners.” I did a third edition of it, just when I moved to Denmark. And it talks about co-creating student spaces that function on autonomy and independence without burning teachers out. And so it’s not a recipe book. It’s not “teach like Pernille” and just do all of these things and then you too. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

RIPP: It’s a question and reflection and ideas book. It is not one where you need to implement new programs. It’s stuff you can implement alongside what you’re already doing, and it’s also a book that can be used as just general conversation starters within schools of questioning the frameworks that we sit in. And I hear from people, because it’s weird to talk about your own books, that it’s helpful and practical. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, okay. 

RIPP: And also inspirational. And I think that that for me are kind of the trifecta. Is it practical? Is it a book that sees you where you are and gives you steps forward without feeling judgmental, and is it a book that gives you hope. And then in the third edition, because I was so burnt out myself, I really talked a lot about sustainable practices for teachers, and moving away from the superhero myth, and the, and the savior myth, and how do, how does that actually look in reality. In a system that wants you to be on a pedestal while also tearing you down at the same time. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

RIPP: Right? 

GONZALEZ: There’s just no winning there, yeah. 

RIPP: And so, yeah, and so it’s a book, you can read it like one chapter at a time or you can kind of go in and say, I want to look at this. And it talks about all sorts of systems within our schools. Whether it’s grades or homework or assignments or reflection or classroom management. Like it’s just like, it’s just there. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

RIPP: So that’s out in the world. But I’m still, and I’m still changing things. And so I blog about that. And then I share on instagram whenever I go down a rabbit hole of something. I try to just give ideas to people because they’re ideas I’m looking for. 

GONZALEZ: Yes, yes. So before we go, this is my last question for you. If you were plunked down right now in a regular old American public school, and/or if a person listening is that teacher right now, and they’re hearing all of this stuff, because obviously many of the changes that you’re talking about with that we could make in the U.S. are things that leadership could do. But if you want to start somehow making your teaching more Danish, more aligned with how things are. What would be some things that you would do or would be able to do kind of right away? 

RIPP: I think my biggest thing is that I would give myself grace in good enough. I would, even if nobody’s going to come and tell me that I can slow down, I would start to purposefully slow down. And I would start to let things go. I would pretend that my classroom was not my classroom, and that I didn’t have to decorate it or hang all the things, do all the extra things. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, nice. 

RIPP: I would start to integrate more movement into my classroom. And obviously always bringing students along in the process of asking them what would you like to see changed within my time with you and how can we actually implement it? And I would take a hard look at my curriculum and I would slow it down. I would cut things out, even kill the darlings. And again, bring students in. Like, where do you find most meaning and maybe use some of the things that you have planned or that you’re coached to do as differentiation opportunities. Give students different pathways. But I, yeah, I think I would forgive myself for doing less. 

GONZALEZ: Nice. 

RIPP: That’s where I would start. 

GONZALEZ: Oh, I love that. 

RIPP: And then I would just start reflecting on when I’m doing less, how does that feel and where can I place that energy and try to place it outside of school. And then, the hardest thing would be to recognize that I’m, you’re only a piece of the puzzle. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Which has always been true. 

RIPP: I think that’s the hardest. Yeah. 

GONZALEZ: It’s just, we just don’t put it in those —

RIPP: Yeah. And we’re not made to feel that way. We’re made to feel like it’s make or break based on every single thing. I’ve sat through professional development where I was reminded that, you know, one word can break a student, and they’ll remember it, you know, in 10 years that you said that one thing to them. And I thought to myself, my God. That’s true. But that’s a responsibility that I can drown in. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Yep. 

RIPP: And so, and so, you know, just finding out my boundaries. Bring them outside. Bring in student voice. Cut back on homework if you can. Cut all the corners with the scripted programs that you can. I was telling one, one teacher today, actually on my Instagram. They’d asked kind of a similar question, and I said, pretend that you’ve been placed on just 80 percent time instead of full time. What would you have to cut from your schedule in order to only teach 80 percent? And then go back and do that. Cut that out. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. I mean, I’m even thinking on an hour by hour basis. If I’ve got a scripted curriculum and it’s telling me to do 20 things, I could just, just do 14 of them and just — 

RIPP: Exactly. 

GONZALEZ: Act like I did, because I mean sometimes there is just a lot of pretending you did it. I mean, and I know, school leaders are probably just dying hearing us recommend that, but sometimes if you can’t change the system, you just sort of work within it. 

RIPP: Yeah, and then share your successes, be brave. And I think so often it becomes an us versus them when it comes to administrators, but truly I’ve met so many gifted administrators that are just as burnt out by the system as we are. And they are on the same side as us. And so also be brave in having conversations and going, you know, I didn’t have permission for this but I kind of piloted. I’m going to use that word. I piloted this idea where I did this and this and this, and I’d love to talk to you about it because I actually saw some really positive things come from that. Be brave in bringing it out in the open if you have an admin that is willing to listen. Which I think a lot are. Some aren’t. Because then maybe it can lead to systemic changes. And, and, and know that it’s okay. We should be asking, and we should be wondering, and we should be pushing back against the system because it shouldn’t be stagnant like it is. And it shouldn’t be burning us out the way it is. 

To read a summary or a transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com, click Podcast, and choose episode 274. To get a regular email from me about my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses, products, and speaking services, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.